


Wrong

by anonymousComrade



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Gen, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-25
Updated: 2011-03-25
Packaged: 2017-10-17 06:45:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/174029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousComrade/pseuds/anonymousComrade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>This is not the red she knows. Something terrible has happened.</i></p><p>In which I try my hand at sadfic. Inspired by the Warhammer of Zillyhoo flash update.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrong

She's prowling the halls of the facility, searching for Vriska or whoever knocked her out and left her with two puncture wounds on her neck (whichever she can find and bring to justice first, and hell, for all she knows they're the same person) when she first detects it.

It's very faint, at first, and she questions whether or not it's all in her head, until she moves deeper into the labyrinth and most definitely picks up a hint of it. She knows what it is but something about it isn't right, it smells different and off and so very _wrong_.

It's red, that much is certain, and that particular shade she'd recognize anywhere. But this red isn't the usual red of candy apples or cherries. It's the red of liquid magma belching sulfur fumes into the air, it's the red of an especially potent flavor of trollbasco sauce that stings her nose, it's the red of rotting meat.

This is not the red she knows. Something terrible has happened.

She walks into the next room and audibly gasps as the stench of it hits her all at once. The odors clash in ways she can barely tolerate but she moves further in anyway, because she can taste the air and among the cacophony of conflicting flavors assaulting her palette, there is something unmistakably grey and black in the sea of that awful red.

He is still here.

She breaks into a run toward him, praying to whatever god will listen to her plea that she is mistaken, that she has misread her synesthesia and that the only tragedy of this situation is a truly impressive amount of extra-spicy grubsauce gone to waste. When she reaches his prone form, she can barely even smell his presence because the malodorous crimson overwhelms her senses.

Her hands move over his body. He isn't breathing. She places a thumb over his wrist. No pulse. She slides a pair of fingers over his eyes to close them out of respect, and she hesitates. There is one final item on the checklist to confirm his identity. She could still be mistaken, she could walk away from the grisly scene _right now_ and still have hope that he yet survives. But it's a false hope, it wouldn't bring him back, and she knows it.

Slowly, she brings her hands to his scalp and touches his horns. They're small and end in a rounded tip instead of the usual points sported by most trolls his age. Nubs.

" _Karkles, no..._ "

Terezi's body is wracked with sobs as she holds the dead boy in her arms. Who could have done this to him? But it doesn't matter. She clings to him in her grief, unaware of the world around her, because what's the point anymore?

She barely even acknowledges the increasing proximity of the honks behind her before the hammer falls.

**Author's Note:**

> please get jossed _please get jossed **please get jossed**_
> 
> Yeah the ending's kind of abrupt but I don't know, I think I've written enough scenes where someone discovers a body and vows revenge and I wanted to do something different (in before "then why are you writing k/t yet again hurr hurr hurr")
> 
> And yeah Alternian meat probably comes in every color ever and not just red, but damnit, _you_ try coming up with another red thing that reeks
> 
> Also I'm thinking I'm gonna drop typing quirks in dialogue (which I did here if you noticed, for all two words of dialogue in this piece), unless it's for emphasis or something else that warrants it standing out, because I've heard talk that some find it a bit annoying! I do not blame them, it kind of is, but with the way I write, I figured it made conversation easier to follow. But perhaps that just means I need to adjust the way I write.


End file.
